After a submersion writer’s conference weekend (in this case Desert
Nights Rising Stars at ASU), I never know what bit of information will become
part of my internal life. In this case, it was Daniel Bosch’s short lyric
poetry book entitled Octaves bound in
three sections that are separated by three spines. Remember those thin magic
wooden pieces tied with ribbons that you flip one end and the entire thing
reverses itself? This doesn’t reverse itself with clever ribbons, but reading
it is accomplished in a variety of ways reminiscent of it.
Out of these lovely to touch and interesting to turn pages, several
poems teased and pulled my muse out of hiding. One line haunts me. It is now
four days later and this line never leaves my thoughts.
The past is present now. And now.
And now.
That pinpoint of time he isolates like a stop motion photo from the
stream of life. I love the ticking of the life clock with ‘…now. And now. And
now.’ We are reminded that we are always on the precipice of the present and of
the past. Both reside within us in the space of a second, the beating of a
butterfly’s wings, or the blink of an eye. In the last line, I've not remembered
exactly, he reverses it.
The present is past and is now.
And now.
What draws my muse, however, is the continuance of the assumed:
And the future is the present now. And now. And now.
There is comfort in that present moment filled with breathless
anticipation and also sweet memory of what has passed. My basic premise in life
has been: “The future enters into us long before it arrives.” What comes to us
on the rebus strip of life has been a part of us unrealized until the present
reveals the past and the future connections. This says it in a far more
memorable and haunting way.
Thank you, Daniel Bosch, for inspiring my muse.
I fear that I’ve not gotten his words perfectly. I left the work in my
Arizona writing studio, never imagining that I would live with this particular
line etched in my mind. I will correct when I’m back in there.
Posts
